


Light Between

by bea_meupscotty



Series: Ever and Ever Sight [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: AU, Angst and Feels, F/M, Light BDSM, Light Bondage, Not Epilogue Compliant
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-31
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-03-30 23:12:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 18,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19037449
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bea_meupscotty/pseuds/bea_meupscotty
Summary: Three times Lucius and Hermione run into each other after the war.***A continuation of Rust and Stardust and Unfettered. You should definitely read at least Unfettered before this for the plot to make sense.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> You guys asked for post-war. I couldn't bear to leave these guys alone. I'm not 100% on where this is headed but gosh if I don't enjoy the ride, and I hope you guys do too. 
> 
> As always, I don't own any of these characters.

The first time she saw him after the war, he was in a holding cell in one of the Ministry’s lower levels. He’d been taken into custody after the battle at Hogwarts, though no one seemed entirely certain what to do with him, given the way those last few hours had turned out, so it was a tentative sort of custody, Narcissa and Draco allowed to go free. 

She’d looked for him during the battle—had waited for him to look for her. She’d looked at every fallen Death Eater’s face, begging the universe to remember those last words they’d said to each other an ocean away, the same silent prayers she sent when she saw a curse hurtling her way as she fought through the castle. She’d gone to look for him after it was all over, but he’d been huddled with his family, and when she went looking again he’d been gone. She hadn’t realized he’d been taken into custody until the next day, when she overheard Kingsley talking about it to Mr. Weasley. 

It was odd not to have to break in to the Ministry. To just walk in, and see smiling faces, recognition and appreciation; she had helped save them all, and the Ministry was still trying to figure itself out in those early days, and so she all she’d had to do was ask after Lucius, and she had an escort to his cell, one she curtly dismissed. He only looked up when he heard her voice, and she had no words, no breath, as she remembered the last time she’d been this close to him. In Malfoy Manor. When he was watching her bleed. 

“Granger. To what do I owe the pleasure?” Words like nothing had ever passed between them, but the hoarseness in his voice and the hollow look in his eyes spoke louder. 

He’d looked so broken in that drawing room, as if, even though she was the one being tortured, she was watching him die. 

“You didn’t ever use the bishop.” He blinked, clearly not expecting this conversation, and looked down at his hands, resting palms-up on his knees. 

“No, I suppose I didn’t.” He swallowed heavily.

“Why?”

Silence hung between them, heavy for a moment, before he looked back up and met her gaze.

“There was only one moment the risk ever seemed worth it.” 

This time she was the one who had to look away, with a sharp intake of breath. She walked as close as she could to his cell, leaning against the bars, though he was still on his cot, too far away for her to touch, and she looked at the stone, remembering. It was hard to remember through the haze of pain and humiliation—it was safer to keep those memories locked far away in the recesses of her brain, to try to let them weather and fade and not take them out and replay them too often, but for this… She remembered that desolation on his face, watching his sister-in-law carve her up, his eyes hollow, almost unseeing, until he’d shaken himself, as if he’d made some decision, and finally they’d focused on her. When she’d finally focused on him too, blinked through the tears and pain, she saw his eyes dart quickly to one side, then back to her. It took her a few times to follow—the pain addled her brain, and she’d missed a few of his movements when a twist of the knife had made it impossible not to flinch, but she finally managed to look at whatever he kept glancing at—a chess table. With one mismatched bishop. Only a few feet behind her head. She hadn’t dared to breathe at that, her mind suddenly racing through the possibilities, trying to plan, to play things through, and she saw the tension enter his body the same moment she realized what he intended to do, the same moment she began to scream in earnest— _NO, DON’T, PLEASE NO, PLEASE DON’T_. They all thought she’d been talking to Bellatrix. He was the only one who stopped, looking at her, eyes wide as he hesitated, understanding. 

“The odds were impossible. Even if I’d managed to get the piece without getting hexed, I couldn’t have gotten to everyone, Harry and Ron were on one side of the room and you were on the other, not to mention everyone else.” She’d always wondered why he’d even bothered to try; he was a better strategist than that. It had always bothered her. 

While she’d been thinking, been talking, he’d stood and walked over to where she was, leaning his head against the the bars that separated them as he exhaled, avoiding her gaze. “Hermione,” and her heart broke a little to hear him use her name again, “getting to that Portkey myself was not part of my plan.”

She couldn’t breathe. She looked up at him, eyes wide, disbelieving.

“But—they—they would have _killed_ you for that.” 

He was silent, refusing to meet her eye, and she heard a soft sound she only realized with delay was her own, a half sob as tears began to sting at her eyes. Her heart was breaking, her chest was a hollow, aching thing, and every cell in her body was telling her to touch him, but when she whispered, “Lucius” and reached up as if to touch his face, she heard a knock from the guard and jumped back from the cell bars. 

Just in time for the guard to clang open the door and announce the visitor. “Mr. Malfoy, your wife is here to see you.” 

She’d left as if she was being chased, ignoring the confused looks she got from Mrs. Malfoy and the guard, not daring to glance back at Lucius. Damn him, and damn her riotous, traitorous heart.

* * *

She stumbled upon him a second time in Diagon Alley, literally ran into him outside of the apothecary. It had been weeks, weeks since they’d spoken in his cell, weeks since she’d gone to Kingsley and said that she had information that should reduce any sentence Lucius Malfoy was sentenced, or even exonerate him, evidence he’d lost faith in Voldemort long before the final battle, but that she’d only share in part and on a highly confidential basis. Weeks in which her head had been spinning, her mind racing, even as she tried to go about her daily life, the inevitable conclusion hammering through her veins to the rhythm of her beating heart—

Lucius would have died for her. 

She’d known that something had changed between them in Los Angeles, had known the depth of that change on her end but hadn’t dared hope that for him it had been anything more than a mutual respect, a slight shift in his attitude towards Muggles, maybe a glimmer of affection. But this… She’d always, perhaps uncharitably, assumed that Lucius’ fierce protectiveness around his family was an offshoot of fundamental selfishness and ego—the best he could do towards love, perhaps, but still rooted in the fact that his family were _his_ , were Malfoys. She’d never imagined him capable of something so reckless and selfless as to take action, wandless, surrounded by Death Eaters, to save her. 

What she wanted to do, desperately, was to talk to him. Kingsley had quietly let her know that the Wizengamot had spared him any Azkaban sentence at all, thanks in part to her information, though it remained anonymous, and she’d thought he’d reach out. When he hadn’t, she’d owled him, vague letters, ones in code, always the same thing over and over— _please, talk to me_. It wasn’t what she’d wanted, she knew. Her plan for all of this had been for them to never have to worry each other in the future, after the war, to neatly compartmentalize a pleasant experience and go on with her life, but she hadn’t planned for… whatever happened between them to occur either. The blame could just as easily be laid at his feet. The Lucius Malfoy she’d known before that would have never tried to save her; he was the one who’d let that weekend bleed into the rest of their lives first. Not that she could ever find fault or blame him. Merlin knew she’d failed miserably at relegating the experience into the box at the back of her mind she’d originally intended. And until she’d talked to him, she couldn’t know if his reticence to speak was because he was afraid to confront the emotions he’d revealed in those tumultuous days after the battle, or because he wanted their original bargain, wanted to go back to his life, Merlin, to his wife. If it was the latter, she could survive it. 

What she couldn’t survive was the uncertainty. 

So when she found herself pressed almost against him in the street near the apothecary, she thought she’d caught his attention, had almost literally grasped at his robes to hang on to him, muttering “wait, Malfoy, please, we need to _talk_ ,” but he just disappeared around a corner, barely a glance in her direction. 

More weeks passed, and more unanswered letters, until Hermione thought she would vibrate to the point of shattering with the tension inside of her. He was avoiding her like a cowardly Slytherin bastard, and so she would confront him like the Gryffindor she was.

* * *

The third time he saw her after the war, he stopped in his tracks.

He was in the middle of a strained conversation with his wife and a French councillor who was willing to overlook his transgressions over the past several years enough to approach him with a sympathetic smile when he heard her name announced as an honoree of the Victory Gala. He tried not to turn and look at her, knew it would be better for him if he could manage just that, but his eyes were drawn to her no matter what his mind willed, and when he saw her, he could no more carry on the conversation or look away than he could have spoken Mermish. 

She was resplendent, head held high, tumultuous ringlets that he’d seen pasted to her forehead with sweat from exertion, seen messy and spilling out over a pillowcase in a wild halo, wild crown, today tamed and pulled back in an updo reminiscent of the one the first time he’d seen her, the Weasley boy on her arm looking no more than a satellite desperate to be in her orbit. But the coup de grace was her dress—no matter that she’d somehow charmed it to be long, with a slight train running behind her, the red satin hit him like a punch to the gut, the bodice and the fabric unmistakeable. He knew it was deliberate, a slap in the face after he’d hid behind the walls of Malfoy Manor, ignoring her increasingly desperate and angry letters, when she met his gaze from her position atop the staircase with a satisfied half-smile. He must look as gutted as he felt. 

He gradually, as if coming back from far away, noticed that both Narcissa and the French councillor were looking at him oddly; he’d clearly been expected to speak and had missed his cue, but the task of continuing conversation like this felt hopelessly overwhelming, not when she was here. He should have known better than to come to this, no matter Kingsley’s wheedling turned stern suggestion. He should have known she’d be here, and that no matter what he told himself he was helpless in the face of her, utterly unprepared to be around her after she’d demolished the foundation on which he’d built his life, his belief system, on which he’d built himself. He made some sort of half-apology and tried to pick back up the thread of conversation, but it was useless; his attention was on her, even when he wasn’t looking at her, as if he could feel her, calm and radiant like the moon hanging full in the sky, and his thoughts were full of wonders and worries about whether she would approach him, what she would say, who she might have told. He was reeling, unsteady—he hated himself for it, that she’d done this to him, taken those rays of sunlight under which they’d made love (for Merlin’s sake, since when did he even _think_ things like make love, though what else could he call it?) and used them like a spotlight so that when he returned, it was as if he could finally see clearly through the haze and the lies and the intimidation and utter bullshit on which the whole foundation of his life had rested. He hated himself, but he couldn’t quite bring himself to hate her. 

Finally, he excused himself to head to a bar set up near the edge of the room, next to where people had begun to dance. He found himself drinking his first scotch rather too quickly, so he asked for a second, and had just begun to sip it and search for Narcissa’s blonde head in the crowd when he saw a flash of scarlet satin in the corner of his eye, and his heart began to thump uncomfortably in his chest. 

“Miss Granger.” 

“Mr. Malfoy.” She sounded as if she’d seen through his attempt to keep his voice steady and cold and found it amusing. He dared a glance in her direction and confirmed that, yes, she looked amused, with a hint of something predatory in her eye. The lioness who had at last stalked within pouncing distance of her prey. 

“Is there something you’d like from the bar?” 

She gave him a searching look for a moment. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.” 

He considered protesting, warning her that a single malt scotch was not to everyone’s taste, but remembered her persistence, determination in the face of new things, and her temper, and simply shrugged and ordered another, handing it over and trying to avoid smirking at the thought of her face after her first sip. She sniffed it slightly before taking a large sip, and for a moment he watched her eyes widen, but then she seemed to collect herself. 

“Good taste. My dad was rather a scotch aficionado.” 

“Really?” he said, because he wasn’t sure what else he could say. This wasn’t the conversation he’d imagined her demanding of him, and he was sure that it wasn’t what she ultimately wanted to discuss either, which begged the question of why he was still standing here, taking increasingly larger gulps of scotch, instead of running far away from whatever she had planned for him, and why she was still merely sipping her own drink, a sly smile on her face. 

He got his answer moments later, when he finished his scotch, the enchanted orchestra launched into a new waltz, and Hermione put her glass down on the bar and stepped in front of him, one hand outstretched. 

“Dance with me, Mr. Malfoy?”

* * *

She saw the momentary flash of hesitation in his eyes, but before he had a chance to waver, she grabbed his hand from where it was resting against the bar and tugged him onto the dance floor, looking back with a grin. She spun him onto the floor and pulled them together, a little closer than strictly necessary, and saw a warning glance from him, but none of that mattered now. She had her plan, which was so far going smoothly, she was a little tipsy from the scotch, and most importantly she was dancing with Lucius, which was an unexpected delight. She’d assumed on some level that he’d be a good dancer, since it seemed like precisely the sort of prattish talent a pureblood heir would have, but that hadn’t prepared her for the reality of the situation, for the warmth of his hand around hers, on her waist, for the strength behind his step and his resolute lead.

“So, you’ve gotten me to dance, Miss Granger. Now what?” There was a flicker of something in his cool grey eyes that quickly faded away, into their normal mask of bland indifference. 

“Now I thought we’d have a pleasant chat.” 

At that he stiffened, giving her a sharp glance. “Well, I must confess I’m not sure what we could possibly have to chat about.” 

She suppressed a spark of momentary frustration. So that was how it was going to be. Well, she’d been prepared to play dirty, though she’d hoped it wouldn’t come to that, even though the part of her brain still reeling with scotch was telling her that this part of the game would be fun. She tilted her head slightly, looking up from under lowered lashes in a way she’d only ever seen from movie starlets and the girls who’d rolled their uniform skirts shorter, a thrill zipping through her as Lucius’ eyes traced the line of her neck, glanced at her lips. 

“Oh, there’s plenty we could discuss. What about travel? I’ve heard Los Angeles is lovely this time of year.” 

His jaw was tensed, eyes flashing, but Hermione was angry now, on a roll. She bit her lip, pressing closer to him on the next turn so that their bodies brushed against each other, just a bit too close for propriety during a waltz. “Or fashion. What do you think of my dress? It is polite to compliment a woman on her outfit at events like these.” 

She heard his heavy exhale, but he stayed stoic, lips pressed firmly together, eyes avoiding hers, and she clenched her jaw. When their next turn took them near a mostly empty corner of the room, Hermione leaned up in a manner anyone who could see them would take to mean she was trying to be heard over the music, her mouth near his ear.

“Or games. We could talk about board games, about cards, about poker, checkers… chess.” 

She felt him tense further, saw his eyes drift closed at the mention, and, her coup de grace, as she slid back to her previous position, she took advantage of the angle and let her lips brush against his bare neck, followed with just the barest hint of teeth, barely pressing, just invoking the memory—of their time together in that house, of that kiss in the gardens when she’d tested his resolve and her own limits. 

His eyes snapped open, filled with fury, something she couldn’t quite discern, and—yes, lurking there, beneath the anger she could see it, she was familiar enough with it at this point—lust. Through some artful maneuvering, in a few moments she found herself near doors that went to a small adjoining patio, shadowed except for the light of the moon, and, barely a breath later, he’d shoved her out the door and into a corner of the patio, pressed up against the chill stone wall in the corner. One breathless heartbeat later, he had cast a silencing charm around them at the same time as she had put her hand on her wand and cast the strongest notice-me-not she could muster. 

“Is this what you wanted?” 

He pressed her harder against the wall now, the weight of his body heavy against her, and she could hear the anger in his voice but she wasn’t afraid.

“You want to talk games, Granger? How about we talk about whatever game it is that you’re playing at? Is this what you thought you’d get?” 

“At least you’re talking to me.” Her voice drifted back, slightly muffled against the wall, and, as if remembering himself, he eased up slightly, and she turned her head back so that she could see the outline of his face in the moonlight. 

He laughed mirthlessly. “All this to talk to me? You want to talk, Granger? Do you want to talk about the fact that you went to Shacklebolt and convinced him to let me off?” She shifted underneath him uncomfortably, and he doubled down. 

“Oh, yes, I knew that was you. You see, the pool of people who could have supplied him with confidential information that I hadn’t been quite so committed to the Dark Lord’s cause as I’d seemed was… woefully small.” 

“I…” She paused, her voice small. “He doesn’t know everything. I didn’t tell him… that. Just that you’d done me a favor, had had the chance to help Voldemort and sell the Order out for months, and hadn’t.” 

She felt him tense behind her, almost hearing the sound of his jaw clenching, teeth grinding. “You want to talk about Los Angeles, then? Do you want to talk about how I was punished by the Dark Lord for my failure in tracking down the fool’s errand false lead I used as an excuse to gallivant with you? Is that what you wanted, wanted to dance while you heard about how I was _tortured_ for your secret?” 

At that she drew in a breath sharply, mind buzzing, heart aching. Tortured… She’d never known. She should’ve guessed, of course, but still, hearing it was different. She tried to reach her hand back, to grab his in her own and comfort him, but he just snatched it and pinned it to the wall above her head, leaving her more helpless than before. 

“And this dress—you have the audacity—!” His free hand came down to trace the edge of the thin strap, sending shivers down her spine as she arched into him. “Manipulative again, brat. So, you want to talk the dress? About how you came into the room wearing this dress and I couldn’t decide what I wanted more, to break every bone in Weasley’s body because he was touching you or to tear the dress off you and make you scream my name in the middle of the Victory Gala?” 

As he spoke, he’d dropped his head so that every hissed word was a breath of warm air against her sensitive ear, and the hand that had been tracing her strap had dipped lower, skirting just over the side of her breath, down her ribcage, now pulling her hips tightly back against him, and she was panting now, squirming at the combination of the feel of his warm body against her and the filthy words that should have made her angry, or ashamed, but instead just reminded her of the rush of dangerous desire that had filled her when she’d choked on his cock and had _liked_ it. He knew what he was doing to her, damnit, but she took some pleasure in noticing, as she ground back against him, that he wasn’t unaffected by this either. 

“But no, you wanted to talk about chess, wasn’t it? Or, really, you want to talk about _that day_. So let’s talk. Let’s talk about how I still have nightmares about that day, about how I’m afraid to share a bed with my own bloody wife because I still wake up screaming _your name_ from nightmares where Bella carves you to pieces and I can do nothing but watch, or, worse, nightmares when I look down and I’m the one doing the carving.” She felt her blood freeze in her veins at that, at the sudden hoarseness of his voice, and she inhaled sharply as he flipped her arm over, to the scars that wouldn’t ever fade, tracing them with his fingertips reverently. “Or maybe you wanted to talk about how for once, I was on the precipice of doing something good with my wasted, hollow life, and you didn’t want to be saved? Would it have been that bad, to be saved by me? Or was it that you cared more about making sure Potter and your precious Weasley made it out than ending your suffering?” She could hear the sneer in his voice, and shudders wracked her body as she shook her head violently. 

“You _idiot_. You utter _prat_. God, that was the part that never made sense to me until I saw you in that cell, how you could have come up with such a stupid plan. You think I didn’t want you to rescue me? Well, no, I didn’t—not at the cost of your life! I would have let Bellatrix Lestrange carve this word into my skin a thousand times over before I let you die to save me. The last words I said to you were _don’t you dare die, Lucius Malfoy_.” 

She was panting now, out of breath, and she could feel that some of her careful updo had fallen loose, her eyes wild as she craned her neck to try to catch a glimpse of Lucius’ face. He was tense but still, hidden from her view by the angle and the shadows, when she felt him pull her closer, his head falling to the curve where her neck met shoulder. 

“You stupid girl. Insufferable brat.” 

His voice was hoarse but there was warmth in it, and he pressed a silent, open-mouthed kiss against her bare skin. She let out a shaky breath, arching back and turning her head towards him, and at that moment he looked up, and their eyes finally met. There was a moment of crackling electricity, of tension, of being on the edge, and then he surged forward, kissing her with a bruising intensity she welcomed, she craved. She moaned into his mouth, her free hand coming up to reach back and tangle in his hair, tugging him closer to her and relishing in his groan. There was nothing of finesse in the kiss, it was sloppy, it was filthy, it was all-consuming, and Hermione felt like she was going to drown in it. The hand that had been on her hip moved to her stomach, pulling her against him until it felt like they were going to bleed into one another, and then up to her breasts, pinching and massaging until Hermione was rolling her hips steadily against him, unable to stop the breathy little gasps and moans that she was making near-constantly now. She arched her back, spreading her legs wider, and he paused when he looked down uncomprehendingly at her spread legs, now mostly bare, the dress returned to its original tiny length. 

She laughed softly, tugging at his hair to bring his mouth to her neck. “It was just a glamour. You couldn’t think I would actually dare touch this dress and mess it up.” 

Her growled approvingly against her neck before she felt his teeth, and any laugh was lost in her throat as she writhed against him. The hand that had been pinning hers to the wall stayed there, fingers now intertwined with hers, as his other hand drifted down to feel the bare skin of her leg, to bunch her dress slowly, slowly, ever so slowly, up until she could feel the cool night air against her upper thighs, against her hips. His lips had gone back to kissing, licking, soft and warm and oh-so-skilled, and she was so lost in it that she didn’t notice his hand creeping back down, finding her underwear, and, then, with a muttered spell, he had torn her knickers away from her body. She gasped at the sudden rush of evening air against her there, squirming, but his hand had already slipped her knickers into the pocket of his robes and come back to spread her folds, and he swore against her neck at finding her hot and slick, sticky wetness already starting to coat the tops of her inner thighs. 

She felt his hand leave her and the pressure of his body against her lessen and whined slightly at the loss, but when she heard the unmistakeable sound of his robes dropping, his trousers unbuttoning, she shivered. Casting a glance back over her shoulder, she drank the sight of him in—cock out, hard and flushed and pulsing in his hand, his hair mussed from her hands, and then he met her gaze and she felt her insides clench. His eyes were as dark as she’d ever seen them, a swirling storm nearly indistinguishable from his darkened pupils, and he was looking at her with a want so potent it shook her to her core. 

“This… Fuck, Granger. This time, it can’t be slow, can’t be gentle, can’t be soft kisses in the dawn. _I_ can’t be gentle, do you understand me, Granger?” His voice was hoarse and low, and he was gripping his cock tightly, eyes locked on hers.

“Yes. I want it. I… Lucius, _please_.” 

She saw his cock twitch, and then his gaze dropped to her arched back, her bare ass, and then down to her very core, his eyes darkening even further, breaths growing shallower. As if in reassurance, she squeezed the hand that still held one of her own pressed against the stone wall, and then spread her legs infinitesimally wider, bracing herself against the wall to open to him, and he drew in one long, last shuddering breath before he pushed forward, burying himself to the hilt. 

Gods above but he was bigger than she’d remembered, or she was tighter, or they just hadn’t had the same kind of extended foreplay she’d had the benefit of before, but the stretch this time carried a creeping pain around the edges that left her breathless. But not, she thought, as she heard him swear above her, his hand gripping hers tightly as he drew almost entirely out and pressed back in again, not an entirely unpleasant pain. As he began to pound into her now, fast and hard, grunting already, his control a barely existent shadow, his mouth dropping to her shoulder so that he could mutter a string of filthy commentary against her pale skin, she found that the pain kept her from spiraling too quickly, kept her right on that edge, letting the pleasure build and build and build until she thought she would explode from it, would incinerate everything around her with the heat under her skin. She clenched around him, relishing his snarled curse and stuttering thrust, before she grabbed his hair and pulled him to her for another kiss, long and deep, her nails curling against his scalp until he sped up further, pressed her against the wall so hard she thought she’d have scrapes, and snaked a hand down to slide against her clit. She’d been dancing so close to the edge that it barely took three broad strokes of his fingers before she was screaming his name, eyes flung wide open to take in the starry sky above her as galaxies exploded in her veins, shivers wracking her body, and a few moments later he was following her over the edge, chanting her name like a prayer against her neck as he stuttered and stilled, panting. They stayed like that for a moment, him inside of her, just breathing against each other, hands still clasped above them.

* * *

Finally he stepped back slightly, gently disentangling their hands with an apologetic kiss against the top of her head as he put himself back together as best he could. His hand felt empty without hers in it, and he involuntarily flexed it a few times as he dressed himself. He heard a rustle and some muttered spells, looking up to see her mostly back to the way she’d begun the evening, except for the messy hair, flushed cheeks, parted lips and gleaming eyes of someone who’d been thoroughly fucked. It was so delectable that he was half-tempted to bugger all of it, to grab her right now and Apparate them to the manor and spend hours, days, eternities making her look like that. Instead, he shook his head slightly, running a hand through his hair to smooth it out.

When he looked back at her, the dreamy, orgasm-flushed set of her face had faded to be replaced by an intensity focused on him.

“Lucius…” 

He didn’t know whether he dreaded or craved her next words.

“What are we doing, Lucius?” 

He exhaled sharply, eyes dropping shut. “Standing outside the Ministry’s Victory Gala. And you were supposed to be so bright.” 

Her eyes flashed in a way that had him regretting his flippant comment.

“You know what I mean, Lucius. I just need you to tell me what you want. That’s all I wanted from you tonight. To know—to… if you want to… if you want the original deal, that we never have to speak about this again, that we go back to separate lives as if none of this ever happened, I will accept that. I will try my very hardest and ultimately fail to pretend like this didn’t happen, like the rose garden didn’t happen, like Los Angeles didn’t happen, but I will leave you alone to pretend as best you can too. But…” She took a deep breath, squaring her shoulders. “That may have been what I wanted when I made the bargain, but that’s not what I want now. Things have changed. But I’ll respect whatever decision you make, I just need to know what you want.” 

For once his mind was silent, and he was left with the empty aching roar of his heart screaming truth at him. Truths that terrified him. Fuck Merlin, what did he want? She might as well have asked him what was at the center of one of the black holes she’d told him about over dinner. She was like that for him—an unknown, something he couldn’t understand, but drawing more and more of him into her, devouring him whole, and yet he helplessly let himself be drawn in, craved being drawn in. Did he want her? Did he want his old life, his fucking wife? 

“I… I don’t know.” It felt empty, like a cop out, and the old piece of him where a heart had once resided was beating rage against the inside of his ribcage now, but he just shook his head. “I am being honest when I saw I don’t know now. I… I just need…” He took a step away from her, small, still within the range of her charm. “I need time.” 

She was quiet for a long while, so long he wondered if he’d made a grave mistake, when she looked up and gave him an open, pleading look. “Time is fine, but, please, Lucius, don’t ignore me again, please don’t leave me to bear the waiting and the uncertainty alone.” 

And only looking at her at that moment did he begin to understand what his cowardice in avoiding her after the incident when he was in custody might have cost her. Of course, he hadn’t had to deal with any of his issues, but… Merlin, she looked so scared at that moment, and he stepped closer and tugged her against him. 

“I won’t, Hermione, I’m sorry, I promise I won’t again. Merlin, I don’t think I could stay away.” 

She relaxed into his touch, sighed against his body and melted into it, and when he leaned down he could smell her hair, parchment and ink and earl grey, and his heart gave an odd thump. 

Suddenly, they realized that they could no longer hear the orchestra playing, or the pleasant chatter of the crowds, just a magically modified voice, and he swore as she said, “The presentation!” In a flurry of activity, she rushed back into the room and he paced the length of the patio, as much to calm his racing mind as to erase the idea that they had left here together from the minds of anyone who might be watching, and then re-entered the main room. When he got in, most of the celebratory pictures and self-congratulatory pats on the back were complete, so it only took Narcissa a few minutes to find him. 

“You were gone a while,” she said impassively as she sidled up to him, head held high, cold eyes glancing in his direction.

“I needed some fresh air.”

She hummed noncommittally, but in a way that left to doubt as to the fact that he was expected to say something more on this, so with a sigh he continued. “I admit it is somewhat… disconcerting how quickly we all return to the charade. As if mere months ago we were merely having a polite disagreement, and not a war.” 

Narcissa snorted from her place next to him. “Be glad that they’re all willing to let us in here, to let us masquerade as the rude guests from the last party instead of the traitors they branded us months ago.” 

He sighed heavily, thinking that he he knew he should be glad but instead of glad he was just _tired_ when a flash of scarlet caught his attention across the room. He paused, watching as Granger strode across the room, agitation writ plain across her face. The Weasley boy was following her, and when he reached out to take her hand and pull her towards him as if to dance, one arm wrapping tightly around her waist, Lucius felt his fist clench so tightly in his pocket that he thought some bone must pop eventually. Granger pushed the boy away gently, shaking her head and turning to leave again, but the redhead was persistent, until she turned around and he saw distinctly the words “not now, Ron, leave me be” across her face flushed with embarrassment before she scampered out of the room. 

“See something of note?” Narcissa continued from next to him, her voice artificially light.

He shook himself. “Just enjoying the show. There appears to be trouble in paradise.” 

The platinum=haired witch beside him gave him a small smile. “How quaint.” 

Barely an hour later, he found himself making excuses to leave, and then he was laying in bed, staring at the velvet canopy above him. He wished he could have said he was thinking about the answer to the question she’d posed him, or even replaying some of the particularly pleasant memories of their encounter tonight, but instead he found himself thinking of only the most cliché, banal query of them all—when could see her again?


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lucius faces the morning after.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this was supposed to be just the intro to the second chapter, but writing is hard and I've been super busy with life, etc., and I got at least this written, so I figured I'd post it. *shrug emoji* So, this is a short, angsty, sadly smut-less chapter (sorry!), but I promise there is both more smut and good things for these two down the road.

Lucius awoke the morning after the Victory Gala with his head spinning, only slightly more from the bottle of Firewhiskey he’d dug out and drank after waking up to yet another godsforsaken nightmare and fallen asleep on the couch in his study than from the events of the prior evening. Laying there, his mouth cotton-dry and parched, his head swimming and throbbing with every pulse of his bitter heart, he licked his lips, closed his eyes—his treacherous mind tried to take him back to those days, one night one day one long night, but he frowned and shoved forward, and then, as if to taunt him, he was remembering the audience with the Dark Lord upon his return. 

The Dark Lord’s scathing wrath was bearable beside the slight air of disappointment that hung about his wife as she watched the proceedings, the pained way his son avoided looking at him, as the Dark Lord began to punish him. As always, he retreated into his own mind, the false memories he’d created to back up his story shoved to the forefront, and then, deep, so deep the Dark Lord never thought to look that far in, he held the tiny kernel of truth together with the other pieces that made up the heart of him, behind the fortress of his Occlumency shields. Usually, to withstand this, he kept his mind focused solidly on one of the pieces behind those solid walls—the quiet awe of the moment he’d held Draco in his arms for the first time, the way Narcissa had looked at him on their wedding day—but today they were all spoiled, slippery with the thought that he was nothing but a failure, had disappointed them, had maybe made a terrible terrible mistake, and when he felt the walls begin to tremble under the pain and the Dark Lord’s pressure into his mind, he felt himself scrabble for a memory he could hold onto, to cling to, a port in the storm of this torture, and then— 

The soft sound of waves breaking against the beach below. Moonlight glinting off of dark waters, reflecting together with blurred electric lights in phantasms of the illuminated structures rising above, buildings, carnival rides, a Ferris wheel, he realized. Eyes staring at him steadily, moonlight reflecting off of them to reveal sparkling chestnut, mossy green, amber. The scent of ink, earl grey tea, salt breeze, roses. 

He felt the pain radiating through his veins, causing his very bones to ache, felt the Dark Lord rummaging around in his head, but all of it was as if from a distance. A continent away, maybe. He focused on the sound of waves, steady, steady, steady like his beating heart. 

And then it was over. 

He hadn’t realized until that moment how desperately he’d needed to know that something as simple and beautiful as the ocean on a summer night existed still. In the end, it wasn’t his ancestry, or his beliefs, or power, or knowledge, or even his family that sustained him. After years spent in the darkest places of his soul, just the memory that somewhere, things were beautiful and people were laughing made him feel the way he’d felt the very first time he’d done magic. 

And once those floodgates were open, once he’d thought back to that day, it didn’t stop coming—the memories, the doubts, the niggling fear that _he’d been terribly wrong_. 

It had been weeks later when they’d been gathered, all of them called together for the Dark Lord to plan with them, to lay out his grand vision, to motivate them with excitement and with fear, if need be. As it had been before, as it would be in the future, the evening’s entertainment was a captured Muggleborn, hovering above them, bound, petrified, only his swiveling panicked eyes revealing the depth of his terror. Lucius avoided looking at the scene; where once it would have given him a feeling of distaste, of someone cursing too loudly at a party or bungling a matter of diplomatic courtesy, now it turned his stomach. He watched as Bella took her knife to the man’s skin, watched as the blood dripped down, the blood they all laughed at and mocked as _dirty_ , possessing barely a stolen whisper of the true power running through their own pure blood, and wondered at the fact that he’d never seen Macnair Apparate more than a few miles at a time. When the Dark Lord began to talk again, speaking of their inevitable victory, of the glory of a new era dawning in which eventually Wizards would take their proper place ruling over Muggles, and with that, an end to Mudbloods, an end to the filthy practice of Muggles attempting to steal the magic they envied from Wizards. 

The thought came so swiftly that Lucius nearly didn’t have time to shove it behind the impenetrable fortress of thoughts deep within his Occlumency shields: _Muggles don’t need to steal our magic, they have their own_. 

He swallowed heavily, forcing his features into an appreciative excitement even as his mind was racing, images of fancy cars speeding over long distances, of picking up a box and speaking into it and getting sushi, of that hollowed-out shell of a building and _one Muggle did all of that?_ , of an excited, pedantic voice speaking about giant telescopes that could see distances he couldn’t imagine, of collapsing stars and black holes, of walking on the bloody moon. Muggles had walked among the stars and still those sitting in this room thought they didn’t have magic? 

He’d barely remembered standing and walking out of the room when it was all over, pacing to the library in a silent daze, just staring out a window at the waning moon peeking from behind a cloud. He did remember the sound of footsteps behind him, whirling to see Severus of all people. 

“Something on your mind, Lucius?” 

He gathered himself, tried to pull his mind back. “Just thinking, Severus. I just needed to think.” 

The younger man looked at him searchingly, keeping everything hidden behind those pitch-black eyes of his. 

“Do you have doubts about the Dark Lord’s plan, Lucius?” 

Lucius checked his Occlumency shields in a panic, but no, Severus had read him a way more powerful than magic—he’d read him as a friend, as someone who’d seen him at his best and at his worst over the years. Lucius hesitated, his mouth opening on a slight exhale, as he considered the man in front of him, considered spilling at least some of his thoughts; Severus was his friend, he had been his friend for ages, he’d risked his own life to help Draco when Lucius himself had been unable to, and yet… he was one of the Dark Lord’s most trusted Death Eaters. So Lucius merely blinked. 

“That would be a betrayal of the Dark Lord, would it not?” 

The two men just looked at each other for a moment, before Lucius turned back to the window. 

“I have no doubts about the Dark Lord’s plan, Severus. I remain committed as ever. I merely grow tired of waiting for the day when it will come to fruition.” 

He’d heard Severus turn around, then pause a moment, likely looking back at him, before he continued out of the room. Knowing what he knew now, Lucius reached for the bottle of Firewhiskey in a fit of churning disappointment and sorrow, throwing it against a wall at finding it empty and welcoming the stabbing pain through his head at the sharp, high tinkle of breaking glass. Knowing what he knew now, he could have told his friend the truth—Severus could have helped him. They could have worked together. Maybe it would have all turned out differently. Maybe Severus would have lived. And instead, he’d taken the opportunity offered by a true friend and had squandered it out of fear and self-preservation. 

He had watched the glee in his fellow Death Eaters’ faces, the wicked smile that split Bella’s face when they tortured the latest unlucky Muggleborn to fall into Snatchers’ hands, and remembered the raucous laughter of sun-kissed teenagers dancing between shops. He’d wondered if what Bella experienced in those moments was anything like the happiness he’d seen on those faces. Gods above, he thought, rolling off the couch with a sudden surge of anger and despair, did he remember the last time even he had laughed for nothing but the sheer joy of it? 

Now that his thoughts had turned down these dark paths, he knew where they would go next—these were well-trodden roads of despair and self-hatred and they always took him to that moment in the drawing room, watching Hermione writhe and scream under Bella’s wand and knife while he stood, _helpless_. He knew it shouldn’t have been worse than the myriad victims who’d been paraded through his home since Voldemort had taken it over, rationally told himself that a day together didn’t mean anything, a quick fuck didn’t mean anything, but when she screamed and writhed on the floor, he couldn’t stop the images that flitted through his mind—her as a fifteen year old girl who’d pressed a hand to the Dark Mark under his robes and given him a chaste thank you kiss, her laughing as he taught her how to eat with chopsticks, her coming out of the store in that ridiculous red dress, the look on her face when she’d seen his Dark Mark and had told him _I know who you are_ before she kissed him, tears running down her face as she admitted she was scared. 

Suddenly, the path forward was clear. He closed his eyes as he worked through permutation after permutation of the plan, finally steeled himself for the inevitable. He’d known, deep down, that it would come to this. No matter what Granger thought, he had gone too far down his path to ever be able to show up at the Order’s doorstep and claim he’d seen the error of his ways, regardless of whether he actually had. He had done too much, taken too many lives, stood by and watched too many things ruined and destroyed. And now, faced with Bella rapidly torturing the girl into insanity or death before his eyes, he was still wandless and so utterly helpless except for this, his one card to play. Redemption was always difficult for men like him anyway, he knew. People didn’t come back from this kind of darkness. And so he’d dragged his eyes away from hers, over to the chess table, back to her, back again, until he’d seen dawning understanding through the pain. He was ready for it, he felt a pang that he would leave Narcissa and Draco behind but at this point, perhaps, they’d be better off without him, without the Dark Lord’s ire he’d drawn, without his doubts, and so he’d tensed, preparing to move, when she’d fixed him with those wild chestnut eyes and screamed at him not to do it. 

He’d wanted to anyway. He was tired of this existence, tired deep down to his soul, and he’d thought perhaps it might be nice, to do one good thing, to give his son something to remember his father for other than colossal disappointment, and then to fade away into darkness, to sleep forever. But in the end he couldn’t bear to disappoint her one more time as she pleaded with him not to. 

So somehow, he’d gone on living. With a roar of frustration, he picked up his new wand and shattered the study windows, first the wand and then his body dropping to the ground, leaning against the couch in the center of the room and panting heavily. 

He barely moved when he heard the door slam open. 

“Father? Father, what in the bloody hell is going on in here?” 

He couldn’t even bring himself to look up at the sound of his son’s voice in the doorway, or footsteps advancing into the room, not even when he heard him swear softly under his breath and mutter a quick _reparo_. Finally, he watched his son’s bare feet pad into sight, stopping directly in front of him before a blonde head leaned down, watching him with caution and something that looked so much like pity it turned Lucius’ stomach.

“Father, you have to pull yourself together.” 

Lucius avoided making eye contact, instead looking at a point over Draco’s shoulder with tired indifference. Draco slammed a palm onto the ground, the sharp slap causing Lucius to start. 

“Fuck, Father! I don’t know what to do. You have to pull it together. Even the elves are beginning to talk about you screaming in your sleep.” 

At this, Lucius blinked, fixing his son with an angry glare. “Vile creatures, looking to spill their master’s secrets, and my own son is the one eager to hear them! I should have them all punished, every single one, for telling you what I scream in my sleep. Why are you even bothering to talk to the elves anyway? Looking for my weaknesses?” 

Draco rolled his eyes, finally looking at his father with some steel in his spine. 

“Maybe I talk to the elves because they’re the only ones I have to talk to! All of our so-called friends hate us for not supporting the Dark Lord enough and our former enemies hate us for supporting him at all. Mother’s never around and you’re… well, just look at you. You look as thought you slept on the floor here and you smell as though you were well and truly skunked when you did. So forgive me for not being quite as impressed by the anger and betrayal routine as you’d hoped I would be.” 

Lucius swallowed heavily, eyes dropping shut as he heard his son stand and move towards the door—one step, two steps, three steps. But then he stopped, and finally he could bring himself to meet Draco’s gaze, which looked more worried and hurt than angry. 

“The house elves never said you screamed things in your sleep, much less what they were. Just that they could hear you screaming. They’re worried about you. _I’m_ worried about you.” 

“I—” His voice was hoarse, cracked with alcohol and with disuse all morning. “I’m sorry.” 

The footsteps started again, coming back towards him, and he looked over to see Draco sliding onto the ground next to him, leaning back against the couch with a thoughtful look in his eyes. 

“My nightmares are usually about Fiendfyre. Usually I dream that I’m trapped, and that Potter sees me and just lists every horrible thing I ever did to him and his friends and then leaves me to burn alive. Sometimes I dream Crabbe is holding me down while I try to escape, and then his face turns into the Dark Lord’s.” 

Lucius shut his eyes tightly, guilt ripping at his heartstrings.

“What do you dream about, Father?” 

He swallowed heavily. “Lots of things. Too many things.” 

Draco paused. “Me too. Most of the time it’s the Fiendfyre, but sometimes it’s the top of the Astronomy Tower, with Dumbledore. Sometimes it’s when they brought Potter out and we all thought he was dead. Sometimes it’s when he was punishing you.” Lucius gulped, letting his head fall back against the couch as he fought the sting of tears. “Sometimes it’s even about Granger being tortured here.” 

The pause after that hung too heavy in the air, and Lucius felt his son’s eyes on him. Lifting his head from the couch, he looked at his son closely, watching as Draco seemed to be deliberating on something. 

“I know you were going to try to save her.” 

Everything had gone slightly fuzzy. His hangover was suddenly debilitating, his pulse racing and the throbbing in his head accelerated to keep pace, his mouth drier than before, and Lucius could only hope that the cold panic and guilt racing through his veins didn’t show in his eyes. 

“I don’t know how you were supposed to, or why you were going to, though I can make some guesses. What I can’t understand and can’t even begin to guess at is why she told you not to.” 

Lucius didn’t trust himself to speak, but apparently he didn’t need to. Draco seemed to take his silence for the affirmation and question it really was. 

“I was watching you. I hated her in school, the uppity know-it-all, but she was still my classmate. I couldn’t bear to watch it, so I looked at you. I saw you start to move, and saw that that was when she started to scream, when she was looking at you.” 

Lucius’ shallow breathing was the only thing audible in the room. 

“I don’t understand why you’d do it, or why she stopped you, but I’m glad. Glad you were going to try, and glad she stopped you.” 

There was silence for a few more long moments before he heard Draco standing up beside him. A moment of hesitation, and then footsteps moving towards the door. A pause. 

“You should really get out of the house, Father. I think… I think some change might do you good.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hermione and Lucius' next encounter is sooner than either expect.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this now takes the cake as the filthiest thing I've ever written. Be forewarned, and check the updated tags accordingly. 
> 
> As always, I don't own these lovely characters. I enjoy and appreciate your comments and reviews more than you could know!

Hermione had spent a lot of time and mental energy after she’d fled the Victory Gala the night before speculating about when she might next see Lucius, and what she would do when they met again. In all her speculating, though, she’d never imagined it would be so soon, or quite this way. 

She’d spent most of the morning after the Victory Gala pacing and trying to work through the events of the night before, until Harry and Ron had called. Lunch had been pleasant, almost the way that things used to be between the three of them, with none of the awkward tension and resentment that had sprung up around the events of those last few months, in the Forest of Dean, of the battle. After a couple of sandwiches and a lot of laughter at the Leaky Cauldron, the trio had made their way down Diagon Alley to—where else—Flourish and Blotts, where Hermione had every intention of buying out half the stock. She didn’t want to go back to Hogwarts for a seventh year—she knew that she would just feel awkward and out of place and much too old, in experiences if not in years, for such a place—but she did want to sit for her NEWTs, even though Harry and Ron protested quite loudly that it wasn’t as if anyone would ever ask about her NEWTs when she applied for a job after she’d quite literally saved the world. She’d simply frowned at them, knowing that the simple fact that they’d both been offered positions as Auror trainees without a single NEWT between them (well, technically, she’d also been offered a position as well, but as it was out of the question for her to accept the position, she didn’t really count herself) had seriously undermined her main strategy to get Harry and Ron to focus on the importance of academics. Harry at least she talked into picking up a few reference texts on his weakest subjects that she knew would be needed for Auror training. He’d given a strained sort of look at a Potions handbook specifically for remedial NEWT students before picking it up and shoving it into her arms, and she hadn’t pressed the subject—it had been bad enough to bring up potions at all, knowing that it would just remind him of their multifaceted former Potions Master and Harry’s still-tangled web of emotions where that was concerned, but, well, he _was_ really dreadful at Potions, and he wouldn’t have margin notes from a prodigy helping him in Auror training. 

All told, it had been a good afternoon. They’d run into Ginny and Luna shopping for school things, had chatted about their plans for going back to Hogwarts, what NEWTs they were taking (Luna—an odd assortment that didn’t add up to any career Hermione had ever heard of, Ginny—everything she’d need to be an Auror, just in case, though she’d already begun being scouted by Quidditch teams)—everything normal and pleasant and relaxed. 

And then it had all been ruined. 

Hermione had broken away from the group, going ahead to pay and step out of the shop even as Harry and Ginny had gotten distracted by a new biography of some Quidditch player that Ginny insisted Harry had to read, Luna looking between the two of them with avid interest even as she seemed not to follow a word of the conversation. Hermione had assumed Ron had stayed behind as well—a Quidditch debate was basically chocolate cake to him, but instead as she’d stepped out of the shop he’d grabbed her arm and tugged her to the corner of the shop, right at the entrance to a small offshoot alley. 

“Hermione, we didn’t get to finish our conversation last night. I want to—”

“Ron, no—” Hermione desperately tried to interrupt, but his grip on her arm had tightened and he was looking at her with determination shining in his familiar blue eyes.

“I thought when you said you’d go with me, you were giving me another chance. I want you to give me—give us another chance, Hermione.” 

“Ron,” she started desperately, looking at him pleadingly as if just saying his name would make him understand. “I told you we would just go as friends. I told you it wasn’t like that.” 

He shook his head, brow furrowing. “I know you said that, but… I thought if we danced, if we had fun, if we could… try again, you’d see it wasn’t a mistake. I just want one more chance, one more time when we’re not scared half to death, please, you’ll see we should give it a go, that we’re meant to give it a go.” 

Hermione shook her head, finally pulling her arm out of his grasp. “No, Ron. It was one night, and it was a mistake. I told you. Please, just drop this, _please_ , Ron.” 

As she stepped back further into the adjacent alleyway, two things happened simultaneously. One—whether by a glimpse out of the corner of her eye, by a wisp of his now-familiar scent, or by some alchemy of the sheer electric connection that seemed to spark in her blood whenever she was near him, Hermione realized that Lucius was in the little alley, his sharp eyes now trained on her as she stepped into view, within earshot as—two—Ron followed her movement, stepping forward and reaching for her arm again to try to pull her near him, and began to speak.

“One night? Hermione, it was not just one night,” he hissed at her, his voice rising precipitously with the flush on his cheeks, “we _made love_ and that bloody well means something to me!”

* * *

For a moment, after he saw Hermione and heard the Weasley boy’s declaration, the jolt of rage and visceral, physical pain that jolted through him was so sharp he actually saw red.

After Draco had told him to get out of the house, he’d thought to use the side entrance at Flourish and Blotts and pick up something to read that was fresh and new and wasn’t tainted by having been owned by him for years already. Instead, he’d been nearly there when he felt her presence, moments before she’d stepped out in front of the mouth of the road right in front of him, and then Weasley had followed her, had _said_ what he’d said. 

Draco was going to regret telling him to leave the house when he committed murder outside of Flourish and Blotts. 

He wasn’t sure what made him angrier—the substance of Weasley’s words, the thought of her lying beneath the brute, her touching _him_ the way she’d touched Lucius, kissing him, coming around him, or the way that Weasley was acting right now, because while Lucius stood, frozen, silent except for his suddenly heavy breathing, Hermione was trying desperately to turn towards him, to wrench herself away from the redheaded man who had her by the forearm, and when, as if from a long distance, he heard her distinctly say “ _no, Ron, please stop, please let me go_ ” he was finally spurred to action. Before he’d even realized what he was doing, he’d closed the distance between them and wrenched the boy’s arm away from her with a sharp twist that was just a touch more painful then it needed to be. 

“Bloody hell! What the— sod off, Malfoy! Leave us alone!” 

Weasley had taken a step up to him, squaring his shoulders with a glare. He clearly meant to be intimidating, and given the boy’s height Lucius was sure it worked at least half of the time he tried it, but Lucius was every bit as tall, and had the broad shoulders and solid frame of a man to back it up, not the thin, gangly body of a boy not yet fully grown, so he just gave the redhead a sneer, unbothered, before turning to Hermione. 

“Is it true?” was all he could get out, choking on the words even as he could hear the rage behind them, the roiling uncertainty and pain turned to anger. He knew it was irrational, illogical—he had no claim on her. Merlin, before yesterday he’d been trying his damnedest not to even acknowledge her existence, and yet, and yet, he’d thought that—he’d thought that maybe she’d been as transformed as he had been, as affected as he had been, that the thought of touching anyone else seemed like eating ash after a holy feast. 

She was breaking down in front of him, her eyes wide as she swayed on the spot and a soft cry left her throat. “I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry.” Weasley made a sort of grunt, and stepped forward as if to meet Hermione’s outstretched hand, and Lucius had a front-row seat to watch the expression of slightly confused triumph melt into utter disbelief tinged with rage as Hermione continued, “Lucius, I’m so sorry, Lucius, Lucius.” 

She was stepping forward now, trying to step between where he was toe to toe with Weasley, trying to reach for him, but Weasley stepped into her path. “Wh—what are you talking about, Hermione? He’s the one who should be apologizing to us! He practically assaulted me!” He turned back to Lucius. “Leave off, this doesn’t concern you!” 

The burning rage of a few moments before had settled into something colder, sharper. The dismissive look he gave Weasley was pure steel, and his voice was ice as he mocked, “Doesn’t concern me? Shall you tell him or shall I, Hermione?” He enunciated every syllable of her name, relishing in the flash of rage in Weasley’s face and the pain that contorted hers. 

“Please, Lucius, let me explain, I know I should have told you, but please, just let me explain!” 

Lucius realized the moment that the cogs of Weasley’s brain actually began to turn. He hesitated, his posture loosening as he turned from Lucius to Hermione. “Hermione? What is he talking about? Why would you need to explain anything to him, Hermione? And why are you calling him Lucius?” 

Ignoring him, Hermione had taken advantage of his pause to shoulder her way between them, reaching for Lucius’ robes. “ _Please_ let me explain, it didn’t mean anything, it was before the battle, before I knew that you—” She paused, darting a glance over at Ron, who was still reeling, looking at them both in dawning horror, when they heard the high chime of the bell over Flourish and Blotts, and then Harry had stuck his head around the corner, eyes growing wide as he took in the shocking tableau before him. 

“Lucius, please, just let me explain!” 

“Get away from him!” The Weasley boy now, reaching out as if to yank Hermione away from where she had nearly grabbed ahold of his arm, and Lucius felt another spike of temper.

“Touch her again when she doesn’t wish to be touched and I will _gladly_ go to Azkaban for your murder.” The redhead shrank back, threat effective, Hermione had reached him now, looking up at him with wide eyes, and there were voices, other voices approaching the entrance to the alleyway, to join Potter’s wide eyes, and still Hermione was looking up at him, saying _please, just let’s talk_ and he growled low in his throat. “This is no place to talk about this.” Her eyes widened impossibly further as he pulled her to him tightly and closed his eyes, leaving that place behind and hearing only the pop of apparition and the faint echo of Weasley yelling in rage.

* * *

Wherever they had apparated to, it wasn’t Malfoy Manor. Hermione had opened her eyes dreading the sight of the now-familiar mansion and the painful memories it would dredge up, but instead they appeared to still be in London, based on what could be seen out of the large picture window, in a lavishly appointed bedroom. With an inhale, she turned to Lucius, who had stepped away from her and was now standing with his back to her, looking out the window.

“Lucius, I truly—”

His voice was sharp when he interrupted her. “For the love of Merlin, please do not say that you are sorry again.” 

She paused, shutting her mouth and swallowing the apology he seemed to spurn. She hadn’t meant—she hadn’t wanted—well, she knew that she should have told him at some point. She’d never wanted him to find out like that, with Ron accosting her in an alleyway and shouting their business for the world to hear, and especially not with Ron saying they’d made love and it was special and beautiful and they were meant to be. The reality had been quite different—at least for Hermione. Maybe Hermione would have perceived it the same way as Ron had if she’d been different, if she hadn’t spent that time with Lucius in the summer, hadn’t been self aware enough to know that they knew the end was coming close and felt death creeping just behind them at every moment and that the sex they’d had had been a desperate cry for life in dark times, a comfort in the all-encompassing night. She’d been selfish to do it in the first place; she should have rebuffed Ron when he’d come to her, telling her he couldn’t sleep, that he was worried, when he’d kissed her. But in that moment, all she’d wanted was to be under the full moon by the sea with Lucius Malfoy one more time, and she didn’t know if she’d ever get the chance, and so she’d pretended. Some part of her had wondered if it would be as good with Ron as it had been with Lucius, if she would prove to herself that her feelings for the man were just hormonal, a physical reaction. Deep down, she’d known she was wrong, though. And her time with Ron had proved it. 

She realized they’d been standing in silence for too long and took a deep breath, preparing for another try at talking to Lucius, at explaining to him, when he interrupted again, voice softer this time. 

“Please don’t apologize again, because there is no need for you to apologize to me.” She watched his shoulders rise and fall with steadying breaths before he turned back around to her, face reflecting something calmer than the barely restrained rage it had showed by Flourish and Blotts. “I have… I’m sorry, I overreacted. We never discussed… and of course, I would be a hypocrite of the highest degree.” 

Hermione took a step forward, closing the distance between them and laying her hand gently on his arm. “I am still sorry that I didn’t tell you sooner, and that you had to hear it the way that you did.” His eyes softened at that, and she felt him relax into her soft touch, when a burst of white at the corner of her vision startled her.

They had been interrupted by the appearance of a Patronus in the shape of a glowing white horse, which stamped a hoof and shook its mane before speaking with Ginny’s voice. 

“Hermione, what in the bloody hell is going on? Ron insists you’ve been abducted by Lucius Malfoy, and Harry says he isn’t certain but he swears he thinks you went of your own accord. Ron’s about to get the Aurors and if you don’t respond in ten minutes, I’ll let him. If you’re under duress when you cast, let us know by saying—oh Merlin’s beard Ron, yes I know not to _say the word in the message_ —our old nickname for my favorite sister-in-law somewhere in your message.” 

The horse dissipated, its message dispatched, both Hermione and Lucius left staring at the space it had briefly occupied before Hermione broke the silence with a snort. 

“It’s a good thing I’m not actually trying to get her a secret message that I’m under duress. I’d be hard pressed to come up with a way to sneak that into an otherwise innocuous message.” 

“What’s the nickname then?” 

“We—well, mostly Ginny—used to call Bill’s wife Fleur… Phlegm.” Hermione blushed slightly as Lucius actually began to laugh, an honest to God laugh, and her blush faded into a dazed smile of amazement as Hermione realized she wasn’t sure if she’d ever heard him laugh that way, free and unburdened. 

“Well, get on with your casting. I would _hate_ to have to tell this story to Shacklebolt’s crack squad of Aurors.” 

Blush returned at the thought of having to explain her current situation to an Auror squad, Hermione drew her wand and focused on the casting, on her happy memory, on the message to Ginny. When she finished, Lucius had moved to sit in a plush armchair that formed part of a sitting area near the window and was staring fixedly out of it, brow furrowed in thought. Hermione followed, tentatively sinking down onto a soft chaise lounge across from him. 

“Where are we, anyway?” 

Lucius looked up at the sound of her voice. “A house I own in London. We have quite a few properties throughout Britain and a few on the continent. I thought you’d like to avoid another trip to the Manor, and,” he paused, brows drawing close again as he averted his eyes from hers, “I was so angry I didn’t trust myself to apparate far.” 

At that any good humor she’d accumulated dissipated, and she sank further into the chaise with a heavy sigh. “I… I really am sorry, you know. That it came out like that. That I didn’t say something earlier.” 

“Since you’ve had such ample opportunity to speak to me while I’ve been avoiding you?” 

She looked up, appreciating the slight smirk he was giving her. “Yes, well, that bit is your own fault, but still…”

“I think, given the events of the day, I could do with a glass of wine. Would you care for one?” She nodded eagerly, watching as he summoned a bottle and glasses and began to pour. Her nerves were jangling about inside of her, restless and unsettled now that they were back to the part where she should tell her story, but and a glass of wine to calm her and fortify her sounded actually perfect. She took the glass and took a long swig from it, sighing at the taste of what was clearly an exquisite and unconscionably expensive Bordeaux, though she noticed that for all his talk of wanting a glass in the first place, he took just a tiny sip and then sat it on the table beside him. Taking another gulp and a a deep breath, she looked up to meet Lucius’ eyes.

“I think I should explain now. Is that… are you ready?”

* * *

He didn’t think he’d ever feel entirely ready to hear this story, to be reminded of Weasley’s beastly hands on her, but he just nodded. Clearly she thought that this would help, and at this point in his life, though he was going entirely mad with it, he thought Hermione Granger might just know best.

She folded and unfolded her hands in her lap for a few moments before she began, gaze trained steadily on her fidgeting fingers. “It was… it was in those last few days before the final battle. I didn’t know yet about… about what you were going to do when I was in Malfoy Manor, how you felt. I didn’t even know if I’d ever see you again, if either of us would survive. We could feel we were getting close, I think, maybe not consciously but… subconsciously, somehow, we recognized it was getting near the end. And it had all been going on so long, we were tired of it. I, at least, felt… so aware of the stakes. Dobby was dead, more people were going to die… I…” 

She paused, and Lucius had the sudden urge to reach across the space between them and grab her hand. He half-started, caught by surprise at the intensity of the urge—he’d never been a comforting person, so the desire to take her hand in his, to sweep her to him and hold her against him as if he could be a bulwark against the darkness of her memories was utterly foreign. He was so lost in the idea that he didn’t reach out at all, so she merely took a deep breath, steeling herself, and continued her story. 

“So when Ron came to me one night I was up keeping watch, saying he couldn’t sleep, he was restless, he wanted to sit out by a fire and talk, I went with him. And when he kissed me… I let him. I just… I wanted to see if I would _feel_ something other than fear. And…” At this, she allowed her eyes to flit up to his own briefly, “and I missed you. I thought I could… imagine it was you.” 

His eyes fluttered closed as his treacherous heart somehow managed to both skip and sink at her words; she’d wanted him, she’d missed him, she’d been imagining him with her, but she’d done it in the arms of another man. 

“It, erm, well, it obviously wasn’t the same, though. I didn’t… I didn’t really feel any better. Ron obviously felt differently, and took it for something it wasn’t intended to be, but for me at least it was rather, um, unsatisfying.”

At this Lucius leaned forward, a wicked smirk crossing his face. So the Weasley boy had left her unsatisfied, had he? “Ah. So your experience with Weasley was unsatisfying. I hope you found yourself decidedly _satisfied_ after our time together?” 

She was blushing now, a delightful flush that rose high on her cheeks and made the hints of green in her eyes sparkle. “Of course I did. Don’t _gloat_ , you dolt.” 

She had the measure of him, because he was practically preening, his chin tilted slightly higher, some of his old confidence regained at the wicked thought that maybe he’d ruined her for any other man, that she’d never be able to touch another man again without thinking of him, wishing it were him inside of her, picturing him above her. “Please, allow me to gloat over the fact that I’m the best you’ve ever had.” 

The color on her cheeks deepened, spread down to her neck in a way that made him want to kiss his way down it, and she was clearly flustered as she said, “Yes, well, there have only been the two. It’s not as if I’ve…” and then she suddenly stopped her sentence, gesturing half-heartedly at him, and he realized with a sudden jolt, as if he’d swallowed a gulp of ice water, what she meant about his own past.

“Hermione—” he said, this time giving in to the urge to reach across for her, but she was continuing on, her blush only spreading and her voice growing higher and faster as she tried to make light of the insecurity she’d obviously inadvertently revealed. 

“No, no, I mean, I’ve been the beneficiary of that experience, many times over, so I don’t think I can quite complain, but, well, you do now know most of the details of pretty much the entire range of my sexual experiences, so maybe it should be your turn to share, you know? Had a secret older lover who taught you everything you know? Maybe a fleeting teen love you’ll always look back on fondly? At least please tell me you find your wife rather unsatisfying.” As soon as the words came out of her mouth, her eyes widened and she clapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh no, I shouldn’t have said that.” 

He closed his eyes, fighting the wave of guilt at discussing his _wife_ with his… with Hermione. But he couldn’t begrudge her the insecurity. She had had a dalliance months ago and he’d flown into a rage and absconded with her from Diagon Alley. He was bloody _married_ , even if their relationship now looked something more like distant housemates with a painful past they avoided discussing. 

“Hermione… Narcissa and I haven’t shared a bed since before Azkaban.” 

Her hand dropped to her lap again, revealing her lips dropped to a small ‘oh’ of surprise. She paused, a look on her face that he recognized, with some trepidation, as the expression that indicated she was thinking rapidly through something. While he felt certain Potter had appreciated it, as it had likely helped her save his life on an occasion or two, in his experience he was rather likely to come out behind when whatever scheme she was imagining came to fruition. 

His suspicions that it spelled bad news for him when Hermione Granger was thinking were confirmed when she continued, “But what about before then? When you did share a bed… was it… satisfying? Kinky? Or did she lie back and think of England?” 

“Why on earth would she think of England?” 

At that she laughed brightly, her head tilting back slightly, her hair catching the afternoon sun streaming in through the window in a way that made him forget to breathe. “It’s a Muggle phrase that I guess wizards don’t have. In the past, and even for some people now, it’s not really considered proper for a woman to want sex, or enjoy it just for the pleasure of it, so the idea was that ladies would just… remember their duty to God and country to have sex so they could bear more children, and not take part as an active participant. Ergo, lie back and think of England.” 

He scoffed at the ridiculous concept. “No, I rather think she didn’t lie back and think of England.”

“So what was it like then?” 

He hesitated, and she must have seen it in his eyes, because suddenly she was leaning close to him, eyes meeting his intently. “I want to know, Lucius,” she said softly, and it was suddenly so quiet in the room, in spite of the traffic noise from outside, that he could have sworn he heard himself swallow heavily. 

“It was… We… we would play games.” Merlin save him, this was the most awkward conversation he’d ever had, and yet Hermione was still looking at him with a keen interest, as if she was watching dominoes falling according to her plan and simply waiting for the last one. 

“What kind of games? I like games,” she said, adjusting her posture on the chaise to something akin to a seductive lounge and giving him a wicked smile. He gulped again. 

“I would… tie her up.” 

Fuck. He had seen her eyes widen at that, her pupils dilate. Her little pink lips, plump and, as his mouth and cock remembered well, oh so soft, fell open on a soft exhale, her breath coming a little faster, a little shallower now. He felt a throb of need, imagining her spread out before him like that, Hermione Granger tied up and begging for him and _all his_. 

“Would you tie me up?” 

And as soon as she said it, another pulse of arousal shot through his veins, imagining the way she’d look entirely at his mercy, reduced to whining and begging while he punished her for what she’d done to him, for what she’d reduced him to—but he stopped cold in that train of thought, shaking his head slightly as he realized what he’d imagined, the rage, the petty desire for revenge that had nothing to do with her and everything to do with his own self-hatred. “No,” he said in a slightly strangled voice, and obviously he’d spoken too soon, and she hadn’t been expecting that answer, because he watched as an expression of hurt flitted across her face before she could hide it. 

“Not,” he said, leaning forward and brushing a hand against her knee, “because I don’t want to, but because I very much want to, and that kind of power over someone is not something to play around with when I’m this… out of control, volatile.” 

She nodded slightly, and then looked at him again with that troublesome thinking face. 

“Did you ever let her tie you up?”

* * *

She knew he’d understood her train of thought a moment after she spoke, because his initial look, of slightly awkward confusion, was replaced by a carefully blank facade, though his controlled exterior was belied by the swift dilation of his pupils, the way he shifted slightly in his armchair, the way she could suddenly see his pulse pounding at his throat.

“No.” His voice was carefully neutral, but even he couldn’t complete mask the way it gone a bit deeper, throatier. 

“Would you let me tie you up?” 

And there it was, the sharp intake of breath, every muscle in his body tensing as his eyes, dark and mercurial now, shot to hers. She hadn’t known what had possessed to take this course of action, but, like everything else with him, she had let the siren call of her darkest desires lead her, and never before had he let her down in this respect. She’d been thinking about the fact that she had, of course, just had her experiences with him and that one fumbling, clumsy night with Ron, and felt so small and pathetic in light of his experiences over the years that she’d just prattled on, slightly heady and impulsive with the wine, until she’d hit upon the one thing that she wanted—even if he couldn’t decide what to do yet, and even if in the end he wouldn’t leave his wife, she wanted to be… better. To have something that was just theirs. To think that, months or years later, he wouldn’t be able to touch anyone else without thinking of her, to know that she had made as indelible an impression on him, on his body if not his soul, as he had made on hers. 

“Hermione,” he said, voice throatier now, but slightly pleading, and she shook her head. She wouldn’t give him the easy way out of this. She knew what she wanted now.

“Would you let me tie you up?” 

He swallowed heavily, eyes drifting closed for a moment before he brought himself back under control and looked at her again. “I couldn’t very well teach you anything if I was at your mercy,” he said, tone artificially light, slightly cajoling, and while her body thrummed at the memory of him _teaching her_ before, she just smiled in response.

“That’s true, but I’ve been doing some reading for… let’s call it independent study,” she was grinning wickedly now at the thunderstruck look on his voice, “and I’d like to try some practical application. Surely you remember that we agreed long ago that learning the theoretical without the practical is useless? Besides, I have great confidence in your teaching abilities.” 

Now leaning back in his chair, she watched him grip the plush armrests tightly, before he grabbed the still barely touched glass of wine off of the table beside him and swallowed half of it in one gulp. 

“Lucius.” His eyes shot to hers, and she could see from here, in the dying afternoon light, how wildly big his pupils were, how dark and swirling the icy grey had gone. “Will you let me tie you up?” 

He was silent for a long beat, just looking at her, the only noise in the room the sound of his heavy breaths and the dulled rumble of street noise below.

“Yes.” 

It was so soft it was almost a whisper, but when she heard it Hermione couldn’t help but grin wickedly. She stood up suddenly, swallowing the end of her wine in one last long drink before she sat it on the table in front of her and surveyed the room, taking in the large four-poster bed that dominated the space, the sitting area, a vanity to one side, before she finally turned back to him. 

“If you want me to stop…” she said, hesitatingly, and his pulse was visibly pounding as he nodded. 

“I’ll say Bludger. If I want you to slow down or lighten up, I’ll say Quidditch. Do you understand?” 

She nodded solemnly, repeating the words to herself in her mind, the concept familiar from the smutty novels she’d borrowed from the Muggle library and read in the isolation of her bedroom these past few months, before she took a step towards him and squared her shoulders. 

“Strip,” she said, mustering every ounce of command she had within her, every bit of bossiness and self-assertion, and hoping she sounded authoritative and seductive, instead of like a little girl playing games. She was gratified by Lucius’ sharp inhalation, but it was a struggle to maintain her air of lofty command when he stood up, his broad, tall presence, the smell of his cologne, all overwhelming her as he stood barely a hands’ breath away from her, gave her a small smile, and began ever so slowly to disrobe. First shrugging his robes off, loosening his old-fashioned cravat, taking care to undo each and every button on his shirt one by one. She was half-tempted to grab her wand and spell him naked, but she knew, instinctively, that that would be a win for him, so she simply raised a brow and watched as he slowly revealed more and more of himself to her. When he finally had shrugged out of his shirt and moved to his trousers, even he seemed to be growing impatient, because he tugged both his trousers and his pants at the same time, revealing that he was most definitely extremely interested in this little game that the two of them were playing. The sight of him, naked before her, his cock hard and bobbing close enough for her touch, nearly made her give in to the urge to lean up and kiss him, take him in her hand and let him just fuck her, but just shook her head slightly and moved toward the bed. 

“Come here and lie down,” she said, gesturing to the bed. He stalked her across the room with eyes focused sharply on her, never breaking eye contact even as he settled himself across the luxurious blankets, hands behind his head and legs wide, not an ounce of shame at his nude body on display. She blinked, realizing that he was not feeling very much at her mercy, notwithstanding the fact that she was ostensibly in charge. With a grin, she reached into her pocket to grab her wand, and before he realized what she was doing, murmured “ _incarcerous_ ”. 

His arms were whipped from behind his head to reach toward the top posts of the bed, secured by the spelled ropes that had also wrapped around his legs to keep them spread. She wondered for a moment if she’d overstepped, but the twitch his cock gave as he tried his bonds and found them holding told her that she was, in fact, very much on the right track. 

“I suppose it’s only fair that I undress too,” she said softly, dropping her robe to the ground and crawling onto the bed to kneel between his splayed legs. He made a soft noise in the back of his throat at this, and she could see his breath coming more quickly. Kneeling in front of him, she pulled the simple Muggle blouse she was wearing over her head and reached quickly for her bra clasp behind her, wishing she’d worn something more appealing than white cotton. Lucius, however, apparently didn’t care much about white cotton, if the slow exhale she heard when her bra dropped away was any indication. Feeling more confident, she ran her hands slowly down her arms, letting her bra straps fall with them, and, tossing her bra to the side of the room, ran her hands across her her breasts, cupping and caressing them, enjoying the way his eyes, trained on the motion of her hands, had gone heavy-lidded with lust. 

“Touch your nipples,” he said in a husky growl. She dropped her hands immediately to her sides. 

“Ah, ah. I’m supposed to be the one in charge, Lucius,” she said, and, impulsively, leaned forward and pinched one of his nipples sharply between her fingers. He arched off the bed with a sudden cry, and she sat back, eyes wide in concern as she wondered if she’d hurt him, but his cock was impossibly harder now, a drop of precum leaking from the tip, and she smiled smugly. She wiggled off the bed to take off her jeans and underwear., leaving her fully nude in front of him. He gave a small whine when she ran her hands up and down her torso, skimming across her heavy breasts, but didn’t attempt to say anything else, she noted with smug satisfaction. 

She climbed back onto the bed between his legs, her eyes skating over his body hungrily. “Stay still,” she murmured softly as she ran her hands up his spread legs, feeling the corded strength in his calves, his muscled thighs, the smooth paleness of his nearly flawless skin a contrast to the coarse blonde hair that covered his body. He sighed softly at her gentle touch, but tensed, head flung back, when she took his cock in her hand for just the ghost of a moment before she continued higher, fingers skating over the sharp planes of his torso. 

“I’ve thought about doing this, you know,” she said, almost conversationally except for the lust making her voice thick and throaty. “Touching every part of you, while you lay still and let me, maybe while you’re asleep, just to see if I can try to memorize all of it, understand how to make you tick and come apart the way you seem to understand me.” He made a soft noise in the back of his throat, his eyes dropping closed as she ran just the tips of her fingers lightly across his chest, barely tracing the outlines of his nipples. “Look at me,” she said, and his eyes popped open at her command, hazy but focused intently on her face as she leaned down and, maintaining eye contact the whole time, took one nipple into her mouth licking it softly before gently grazing it with her teeth. 

“Fuck,” he cried out, body tensing, his hips arching towards her in desperation, and she sat back, schooling her features into a look of dismay. 

“I _told_ you to stay still. What am I going to do with you now?” She paused, her eyes flicking up to him with a question in them, because she actually wasn’t quite certain what she wanted to do with him now. 

“ _Flagellare _,” he said hoarsely, and her eyes narrowed, trying to focus on the word. It wasn’t either of the words he’d said before, his safe words, but her mind cast over them, trying to make sure that she hadn’t misremembered or misheard them. He must have sensed her confusion because he cleared his throat and tried again. “A spell. Take your wand and say _flagellare_.” __

__She blinked at him, reaching for her wand and whispering the spell, shocked to watch soft leather tendrils sprout from the tip. She’d seen this type of thing before, had come across it in her rather extracurricular reading, but using it… She looked up to see him eyeing her hungrily, another long smear of precum dripping from the tip of his cock. “You asked what you were going to do to do to me. I rather thought you might like to punish me.”_ _

__Her insides clenched at that, and she looked back down at him, her own breathing going heavy. “But I’ve never… I don’t want to hurt you…”_ _

__Something in his gaze shifted, the hunger dimmed somewhat, growing softer, and he gave her a small smile. “You won’t hurt me. Try it on yourself first, get a sense of it. And remember the impact is mostly in the wrist; controlling your wrist is the key.”_ _

__She nodded, looking down at the flogger in her hand with curiosity now. She twirled it a few times, getting used to the weight of it, and then gave it an experimental smack towards her thigh. She hissed sharply—a little too much wrist—but the sound was drowned out by a soft grunt of approval from Lucius. She looked over to notice that a sheen of sweat had broken out across his body, his breathing shallow and ragged as his eyes focused on the lines of red across her thigh. She smiled again, and gave it another try, pulling her wrist just slightly, and sighing at the sensation this time—still sharp, but much closer to that intoxicating line between pleasure and pain, the one he’d first taught her how to walk._ _

__“Are you ready?”_ _

__Lucius nodded immediately, not even bothering to feign indifference, and she would have laughed at his eagerness if she wasn’t fairly well thrumming with it herself. She shifted slightly, spreading her legs, and she heard him swear under his breath at the scent of her arousal._ _

__“Count to three,” she said, remembering the books she’d read and parroting words back, barely trusting her own voice as she shifted on the bed to come around to the side of him._ _

__He nodded again, throat working around a swallow, and for a moment the only sound in the room was their harsh breathing, before she closed her eyes and, focusing on the movement, struck out at him. The sound of the soft leather sharp against his pale torso was drowned out by a harsh exhale that edged into a word. “One,” he panted beneath her, fingers clenching mindlessly at the ropes that bound him._ _

__Her next strike was a little higher, and when one of the strips of leather licked against his nipple she inwardly winced, until he let out a broken groan, eyes fluttering closed and then back open to fix on her in front of him. “Two,” he gasped, his voice unsteady._ _

__She was dizzy with lust now, lightheaded, her skin on fire and she’d barely touched him. She took a deep, shuddering breath and struck out one last time, but this time, unfocused, she’d misjudged, and even in the moment before it landed she knew it would hit harder than she’d intended. She was right, hearing a sharper thwack as the leather made contact with his skin, and he cried out, but instead of jerking away from the pain he arched upward, hips thrusting mindlessly towards the air as his final count came out more in the tone of a desperate moan. “Three.”_ _

__She dropped her wand on the table beside them and instantly leaned down to run her lips gently across the red lines criss-crossing his torso. He made a soft noise of approval, a slight whimper, and she watched his hips shift unconsciously upward again. “Thank you,” she whispered into his skin; she didn’t elaborate, but she knew she didn’t have to. For the spell, for the knowledge, for the gift of this electric pleasure arcing its way around her body, thrumming under her skin, for the power and the trust._ _

__“No, thank you,” he said softly, but with a strain in his voice the source of which was evident as her lips traced down his torso to where his cock lay, still hard and leaking as she brushed soft kisses over the length of the shaft, listening to his breathing grow heavy and ragged. When she wrapped her lips around just the head, her tongue lapping at the salty smear of precum that had covered it, she heard a whine low in his throat._ _

__“Let me taste you at the same time… please,” he added at the end, and the pleasure promised by his plan, plus the idea of Lucius bloody Malfoy begging to be able to lick her was heady enough that she readily assented, repositioning herself until she could feel his hot breath on her inner thighs, sending a shudder down her spine._ _

__“Tell me when you’re close,” she said, eyeing the throbbing member in front of her as she leaned forward and wrapped a hand around the base, rewarded with the feel of his sharp exhale against her wet center._ _

__“I won’t come until you tell me to,” he responded, upping the game again, and she felt another tingling throb of pleasure run through her at that idea, of holding that power over him too, of him trusting her with that power._ _

__“Yes,” she breathed, stroking his shaft as she leaned down, her mouth hovering over him._ _

__When she finally felt his tongue against her she moaned, one hand tightening on the blankets beneath them as she bucked against his mouth. Desperate for a distraction from the pleasure he was wreaking on her body with his questing tongue and the occasional scrape of his teeth against her sensitive inner thighs, she took him into her mouth without warning, relishing his heady groan against her. He quickly resumed his efforts, redoubled now, the slight burn of his day-old stubble against her soft skin causing the fire simmering in her veins to escalate to fever pitch as he alternated between thrusts of his tongue deep inside of her and focused attention on her sensitive clit. She was writhing against him, and she wondered how he could even breathe, but from the rapid rise and fall of his chest and stomach beneath her she knew he was managing it. Struggling to be able to give as good as she was getting, she sank her mouth further down his cock, giving up any pretense at skillful teasing as she focused on bobbing her head up and down, taking as much of him as she could, remembering the pleasant burn and choke, the heady danger she’d felt when she’d done this for him that first night of theirs. His hips were helping her, bucking slightly, mindlessly, and when she let her hand drift down to massage his balls at the same time as she adjusted her angle slightly, feeling him thrust impossibly deeper, he broke off his attention to her clit with a broken noise like a wounded animal._ _

__“I’m close, Hermione, I’m—” he said hoarsely.__

__* * *_ _

__He didn’t think he’d ever been so desperate to come in his life. He’d been nearly fully hard from the first moment she’d proposed this plan, the rapid migration of all of the blood in his body away from his brain to his cock surely the reason he’d agreed to this in the first place, when he should have been trying to clear his mind, settle himself, think rationally about his position and what he should do. Nothing about the way she was panting softly against him, her warm breath against his cock as good as a caress, was helping him to think rationally. She’d pulled her mouth off of him, and he took a moment to try to regain control over himself. Every moment of this encounter had been one of the most erotic things he’d ever experienced, from her bold proposition, to the way she’d instinctively known the right mix of gentle and hard, doling out pleasure and just enough pain to keep the pleasure sharp and hazy. He’d nearly gone dizzy with it when he’d seen her try out the flogger on her own thigh, as his brain tried desperately to process both the image of her, naked, holding it in her hand, beautiful and commanding and so in control, and the leather against her skin, the way her skin had bounced and reddened, imagining her under him, letting him do that to her later. It was hardly a wonder that he’d already been nearly trembling trying to hold back an orgasm when she first took him in her mouth, and the feel of her tight, wet throat buzzing around him with the little noises he was causing her to make had nearly undone him. He’d never wanted to give someone this power over him before, this control over his body, his pleasure, and yet—she could have it if she wanted it. She had held his life in her hands, metaphorically and at times literally, and somehow that made this seem simple. At first he’d wanted to spell himself free of his bonds and take back the power, show her every wicked thing he could, but as time had gone on, as she’d shown she knew exactly how to make his body sing beneath her, he’d unexpectedly felt the tension he’d been carrying for months, the weight of his choices, of his responsibilities, all of that fall away as his world narrowed and focused to this—to pleasing her, to trusting her, to just her._  
_

__He reached out for her clit again, flicking his tongue against it sharply before pressing inside of her, feeling her hot and soaking wet against his mouth, moaning, pushing her hands onto his thighs to support herself as she ground down against him. She was panting, making soft sighs and little whimpers that went straight to his cock. His fingers were twitching, he thought he’d go insane if he couldn’t reach down and grab the soft curves of her ass, pull her to him and thrust his fingers inside of her, so instead he let himself nip lightly at her clit, and shuddered as she came apart above him with a keening moan, her nails digging into the skin of his thighs as she quaked._ _

__He tried to lick her again, to keep up the steady stream of pleasure, but she pulled away, and when he opened his eyes she was straddling his lap, holding herself just above his aching cock. She leaned down with dazed, hungry eyes, and then she kissed him, deeply, fully, moaning into his mouth as she tasted herself on him, and she was grinding her clit against his cock trapped between them. He let out a strangled groan and she rocked back, nodding, knowing what he wanted, what he needed._ _

__He didn’t think it was even possible for him to breathe in the moments it took her to sit back and line him up beneath her. When she finally sank down onto him, her impossibly hot, tight channel enveloping him, he was dimly aware, as if from a long distance, that it was him that was groaning desperately. His body was on fire, every nerve ending sparking and aware and attuned to her perfect body above him, covered in a fine sheen of sweat, mouth shiny with her own juices from their sloppy kiss, hair messy and untamed, a mane of curls as wild and alive as she was in that moment. He twisted his hands, digging his fingernails into the skin of his own palms so hard he nearly broke the skin as he focused on not coming immediately. She immediately dropped a hand between her own legs, rubbing at her clit as she began to move on him. His eyes were so heavy with lust he wanted to close them, drop his head back and let himself _feel_ , but he couldn’t tear himself away from the perfect sight of her, seared indelibly into his brain. He was bucking up into her as well as he could with his restraints, twisting his hips as he tried to hit those sensitive spots inside of her, and was finally rewarded as her eyes flew wide open, her body clenching around him as she nearly screamed, her pace escalating, her fingers circling her clit sharp and fast now. _ _

__“Hermione, I—fuck—yes, I—close, close, Hermione, please, _please_ ,” he was begging now, the pressure in the base of his spine building to nearly unbearable levels. The French called orgasm _la petite mort,_ the little death, and he had never understood it with such clarity as he had at that moment. He didn’t know how he could survive this, survive her. _ _

__“Yes, yes, close, hold on, you can, Lucius, almost there, I’m almost… almost…” She dropped one hand to his chest, nails scraping against his skin as he whined desperately, and then with a sharp twist of her hips he felt her fall apart, her walls tightening impossibly around him as she whispered, “Yes, now, come, come for me, Lucius.” He thrust once, twice more into her before he came with a roar. He came so hard he thought he blacked out. He couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t feel, couldn’t think anything but her, but Hermione, Hermione, his Hermione.__

__* * *_ _

__She’d collapsed against him, boneless after her orgasm, listening to him whisper her name over and over as he slowly, shudderingly, came down from his own. Belatedly, she realized that he was still tied up, but even as she was pushing herself up to reach for her wand she felt him reach down and wrap his arms around her, turning them onto their side so that he was wrapped around her. Blinking, she looked up at him in confusion._  
_

__“You could have gotten free this whole time?”_ _

__The smugness of his reply was only slightly diminished by the fact that his normally impeccable hair was mussed beyond recognition, lips swollen, voice hoarse. “Yes. Does that bother you?”_ _

__She took a moment to actually consider the question before she gave him a slow smile. “No. I actually think it makes it better.” He could have gotten free, this powerful, skilled man beneath her, and yet he’d given in to her, let himself stay at her mercy—the fact that it was submission willingly given made it all the sweeter._ _

__He returned her smile, a little dazed, and curled tighter around her with a soft sigh, his eyes dropping closed as his breathing slowed to a deep, gradual rise and fall. She felt herself settling into that same rhythm, letting the weariness of her body creep over her. She yawned into his chest and he tugged her a little closer, letting her legs thread between his. She was tired, and all of her problems, the reality of her day and the conversation she’d put off with her friends—all of that would be there tomorrow. For today, she could just let herself drift off to sleep in Lucius Malfoy’s arms, sated and sore._ _

__As her eyes shut and her mind started to drift off, she heard him murmur sleepily against her hair._ _

__“You, Hermione Granger, are the best I have ever had. I think you are the best woman I have ever known.”_ _


End file.
